they run the risk of being registered under forged identity details by their parents or
caregivers.
66.
For the above reasons, the Committee holds that universal birth registration
under Article 6 (2) of the African Children‟s Charter also means that children in
undocumented migration status must be registered at birth without discrimination.
Proof of parental identity by non-documentary evidence should be explored by
States parties. This will prevent a recurring intergenerational problem from arising, in
which generations of non-registered persons exist due to non- registration of their
parents and ancestors.
(e)
67.
Birth registration and children born to indigenous parents
In its advisory opinion to the African Union Member States on the United
Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the African Commission
drew a number of characteristics with which indigenous people generally identify
themselves: Self-identification; a special attachment to and use of their traditional
land whereby their ancestral land and territory have a fundamental importance for
their collective physical and cultural survival as peoples; a state of subjugation,
marginalisation, dispossession, exclusion, or discrimination because these peoples
have different cultures, ways of life or modes of production than the national
hegemonic and dominant model.27 The African Commission explained that
indigenous peoples have, due to past and ongoing processes, become marginalised
in their own country and that they need recognition and protection of their basic
human rights and fundamental freedoms.28
68.
The Committee wishes to indicate that the marginalisation of indigenous
peoples and lack of recognition of their basic rights impacts negatively on the
realisation of their children‟s rights, including the right to birth registration which is
essential to the realisation of other children‟s and human rights. The Committee
notes that the rate of birth registration for children of indigenous parents is worldwide
27
African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Advisory Opinion on the United Nations Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, May 2007, para 12.
28
Centre for Minority Rights Development (Kenya) and Minority Rights Group International on behalf of
Endorois Welfare Council v Kenya 276/2003 (4 February 2010), para 148.
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